Brain Fog Diaries

Are you at the stage where you find you walk into a room and immediately you forget why you entered?  Or remembering that phone number you always knew has simply just vanished?  What about going to the store for 3 items, but once stepping inside you completely forget what those were and you return home with 3 completely different purchases? 

I don’t have hot flashes, I have short vacations in tropical-like conditions… Anonymous.

Welcome to the Brain Fog Diaries.  A time where a lot of women enter and most forget what they were doing.  Welcome to the 50’s – the glory days..  

For some time, I have been finding it odd that my short-term memory seems to be slipping,  

That once well-known phone number… gone

The name of your friends’ child… gone

The password of your bank account… gone

The ingredients for that staple dressing used weekly… gone

I used to be on the ball with remembering every itsy-bitsy detail and was confident that I could retrieve it at a moment’s notice.  Now, I’d be lucky to remember that I have something to remember.  I find if I dig deep enough, I can, but it takes so…  much….. effort.  

Lists, lists and more lists, That is how I get through my day.  If I don’t write it down, POOF… it’s gone.  Between my regular sticky notes (post-it brand has been earning much income from me) or my agenda… the papers are full.  

For years, I wondered why this was happening, until I began to do some reading and even chatting with a few girlfriends and the light went off!  Welcome to the glory years of women – menopause.  

According to letstalkmenopause.org, many women experience that ‘not so sharp’ thinking once they enter the menopause years.  Some may even feel like they have a jungle-gym brain – jumping from one thing to the next and often women experience a mixture of both.  Experiencing this can sometimes lead to feeling less adequate or competent in their jobs or home life therefore leading to some emotional instability and quite frankly, some worrying.  

What the heck is happening?

Estrogen has left the building!  (insert NSYNC’s hit BYE BYE BYE).  This hormone is imperative for sleep, mood, and cognition.  As it decreases, so does those once loved 3 essentials.  Your sleep is interrupted by thinking you are on fire, your mood is so wonky that your spouse thinks he’s in a battlefield, and you begin pulling your hair out trying to figure out why you could once multitask like it was an Olympic event and now you are barely achieving a participation ribbon.  

What we ALL need to remember is that this is NORMAL!  It is an absolutely normal transition each and every woman goes through.  We are simply and utterly extremely hard on ourselves when this occurs. 

We expect our brains to never fail us. 

We expect our minds to perform like they did in our 20’s.

We expect our people pleasing mood to last forever and always. 

What Can We Do To Help Our Mind And Body?

1. Sleep is important.  Set a regular routine of heading to bed at a consistent time.  Get a fan if needed.  You don’t want to freeze out your husband, but a gentle cool breeze on your side of the bed will definitely help in those 2AM ‘why am I sweating like I am in midday sun?’ moments.  
2. Recognize the moment – if you can’t remember something – take a pause – “I need a moment. Oftentimes, you will recall what you were thinking about.  If not, begin writing down your thoughts, your to-do’s, and your must-have’s.  Get an agenda or day planner or use your list app on your phone.  Why struggle?  Write it down and be at ease knowing you can look at your upcoming days at a moment’s notice. 
3. Set up a regular and consistent exercise routine.  This is crucial for brain health as it increases all the necessary brain aspects to help our nerves stay healthy and connected.  Regular exercise lowers cortisol – the stress hormone. As estrogen decreases your body becomes more sensitive to stress.  While the once big cardio phase in your younger years was great for weight loss and improved body function, this is not the case for women in their 50’s.  Prolonged cardio can actually spike cortisol (your body is enduring a natural stress) and because estrogen (the hormone necessary to decrease cortisol) is BYE BYE BYE, your body will just pile on more and more stress making you feel more like a crazy person and not the calm gentle soul you crave.   So, a regular routine of walking and weight training is imperative for your mental clarity and bone health.  (More to come on this on a future Brain Fog Diary blog).  

So, if you are like me; in your 50’s thinking you are losing your brain, definitely having interrupted sleep, becoming frazzled at your career, wondering why you now become overwhelmed at even the slightly small thing like a spontaneous fun activity suggestion by your adoring spouse, or even wondering why you are now squishy in the middle when you once were not… welcome!  

I believe more women need to know YOU ARE PERFECTLY NORMAL!  So, the Brainfog Diaries will become a regular chapter series throughout the year in Laughter And Luggage.  I am unsure why it seems that menopause is such a faux paw to speak about, but after trying to dig in and read more about it, I am finding this subject is definitely an area where women need reassurance with.  

If you need a friend or a kind listening ear to reassure that you are not going out of your mind, click below.  I’d love to offer some hope and calm to your new chapter in life that can feel overwhelming, but it doesn’t have to be.   

References: https://www.letstalkmenopause.org/our-articles/brain-fog and https://trainforeverstrong.com/hormones-cortisol-weight-gain-exercise/